BEEF – Are You Hungry For More? [Discussion]

Jan 17 2012

As any attentive hip hop fan knows, there has been a new slice of beef added to the already heaping pile of hip hop face-offs with the release of Common’s ruthless diss towards Drake on his remix of the Rick Ross track “Stay Schemin”.

The beef started when Drake apparently let some subliminal shots fly Common’s way on the original cut of “Stay Schemin’” which appeared on Ross’ new mixtape Rich Forever. Let me say this first: this is not Drake’s first foray into the meat section. A few months back both he and Big Sean were seen criticizing Southern legend Ludacris for using a delivery style they felt they had innovated(The Supa Dupa flow), which ended (for now) in a track from Luda’s newest mixtape schoolin the youngins on the history of said delivery style.

Now with this recent jab by the Toronto icon, we saw a full and blatant response from Chicago veteran Common, tossing out such lines as:

“My motto is Chicago bitch, everybody know you’re sweet, what the problem is? / Don’t play dumb, I’m the one that acknowledged it, son of a bitch I imagine what you father is/She said how you make your oppponent?/The rapper of the moment, the style he don’t own it…”

AND

“Can’t say a nigga name but you rap about a niggas wife, you sho’black and white tryna live a nigga’s life/I’m taking too long with this amateur guy, you aint wet nobody nigga, you Canada Dry.”

Aaaand just in case you didn’t know who he was talking about, he makes sure:

“Soft nigga, make no mistake, I’m talking to Drake”

Dwaaam, Common! Since the release of the track, the internet has turned into one giant crazed Drake VS. Common forum, and often straight up into a new school VS. old school argument. Now as we previously reported, Tech N9ne has addressed the situation in the most respectful way, both sticking up for Drake’s skills as a rapper and stating his long time respect and appreciation for Common. If you’re a Twitter Technician you probably spotted these:

So our man Tech, as a fan of both these artists and a veteran in the game himself, has taken the high road on this particular episode of “When Rappers Attack”. Should we as fans of hip hop be doing the same? In an age where hip hop beef has (for the most part) become harmless Twitter arguments and sale-spiking diss tracks, is beef still relevant?

As a long time hip hop head, I can see where these dudes like Common are coming from. Hip hop is the voice of the people, an entire culture, damn near a religion. At the same time, it’s an art form and with any healthy art form comes the unregulated freedom of expression. Should we be faulting these cats for not sticking to what we believe to be true hip hop and calling them out on it, or should we take the high road and accept that hip hop is an art that is bigger than all of us and leave it unconfined? Does beef make Hip Hop more fun? More engaging? That’s this head’s question. What do you think, are you hungry for more?